Probiotics or Fermented Foods? Microbiologist view
What Is A Probiotic Supplement?
A probiotic supplement is made of good live bacteria and/or yeasts that naturally live in our body and that confer health benefits to us.
Probiotics can:
- Protect us from not only gut infections but also diseases like the common cold.
- Help prevent and treat gut-related conditions such as diarrhea, constipation, bloating, and cramping.
- Improve mental disorders like depression, anxiety, and stress.
- Reduce “bad” LDL cholesterol levels.
- Boost the immune system.
- Potential help in certain allergies and eczema.
Should You Use Probiotic Supplements?
Probiotic supplements can help especially if you have a gut condition such as diarrhea, constipation, or infections, but also anxiety, or depression.
The good probiotic bacteria will fight and limit the bad bacteria by directly acting on them or by strengthening the immune system and intestinal epithelial cells.
If you do not take them, your body will recover but it may take longer or, in some cases, when the gut microbiota does not improve naturally, these conditions can remain chronic.
Probiotics are a very useful tool to stabilize the gut microbiome when taking a course of antibiotics.
Some people develop diarrhea after using antibiotics and can also become colonized by pathogenic bacteria, such as Clostridium difficile.
What about healthy people?
Whenever research has proven their health benefits, probiotics are considered safe to take daily as a way to prevent gut-related conditions.
Fermented Foods For Gut Health
Fermented foods have been around the world as part of healthy diets and used for food preservation.
Think of kimchi in Korea, natto in Japan, miso in Japan and Korea, and tempeh in Indonesia, just to mention a few.
Taken in moderation, these foods can be perfectly healthy and are an easy way to introduce bacteria to your gut.
However, these foods contain many different bacterial species, and most of them have not been researched.
We do not know yet whether these bacteria are good, bad, or neutral. The most likely scenario is that there will be a mix of all of those.
Moreover, some foods in the market are pasteurized, a process that kills the bacteria and negates most of the potential health effects.
On the other hand, probiotic supplements chose their bacterial strains for their health-promoting properties and are introduced in huge amounts per dose.
It is very important to highlight that not all probiotics in the market have research behind them.
Moreover, many manufacturers boost the numbers of bacteria in their products by adding cultures such as yogurt starters (Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus bulgaricus), which may not necessarily have good health-promoting qualities.
This way they increase the variety of bacterial species in their product so that they can claim a higher quality product and increase their price.
So which one should you choose?
To be honest, I do both.
I want to take the benefits from both sides of the coin. I vary between the different fermented foods, and I take a probiotic that has been research for the condition I want to prevent or treat.
I will be making a guide soon that will teach you how to find the best probiotic for your needs. Coming soon!
Find more information on probiotics, fermented foods, and the microbiome in my blog (link below).
See you soon!
